[Christ]

Well, they got one thing wrong... it's not the tryglycerides that are burning... glycerine is a by product of bio-fuels. You make soap with it. It could be burned, but requires temperatures in excess of those you'd find in a combustion engine (normally) to burn cleanly, hence the reason SVO/WVO are not technically legal for use as fuels. You're doing more harm than good by burning them, IMO.

However, I'd like to say that I stand behind the use of medical waste (and all other forms of waste) to generate power/fuel of some kind. Why shouldn't we? What's so much worse about "running your ass off" in a fuel tank/combustion engine than just letting it decompose into mush?! ...one of the commenters had it right, saying that: "_ Look around, without a doubt, one of the things we do best is get fat...", a sad-but-true scenario in the increasingly sedentary lifestyles of many Americans, and even other countries today.

In fact, by not using the excess for something, we're further endorsing the excess waste that goes on in this country. At least if we use the fat for something, we're getting back something from someone else's wasteful lifestyle.

There is mention in that article that one gallon of grease can get you ~one gallon of fuel, which is partly correct after conversion takes place, because of the methanol fuel that is added to the oil and the glycerine that is removed. That assumption, however, makes my earlier math incorrect, because there is more than 40% of the total content of the rendered fat that gets used as fuel.

Recalculating -

80% of the fat can be safely converted to grease by rendering.
400 lbs of fat would give 360 lbs of grease, which, at 8 lbs per gallon, makes 40 gallon of fuel (approx).